Worlds Unseen (Calling You and Me)
by SecretEngima
Summary: Different worlds can be more similar than expected, care must be taken lest one slip between them. The consequences of walking in one world grow even greater upon return to the other, and magic is not lightly forgotten. Bast isn't certain why he left or why he's back, but he knows this: there is a Scourge on Earth as was on Eos, and he won't let it take his family. Not this time.
1. Chapter 1: Mad Boy

**Oh look. ANOTHER STORY. But I have an excuse. My buddy made me write this as an ongoing (slow going) present of sorts and since I just finished the tenth chap without any sign of actually reaching the end anytime soon ... I figured I might as well share the insanity! Whoo! So, basic thing to know right off the bat is I essentially ... OC-inserted Bast? Like- I wanted to use a known canon HZD character for Reasons that had more screen time than two lines of dialogue, so I chose Bast. But in the process I've ... rewritten his personality, big time. For good Reasons! You'll see, but yeah, that's just your heads up.**

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**Chapter One: Mad Boy**

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The first time Aloy met Bast, he threw a rock at her head and scarred her forehead for life. True, she got even by knocking the next rock out of his hand just before he could throw it and it was that encounter which spurred her on to train to win the Proving, but she never forgot that terrible first meeting.

Their second meeting couldn't have been more different.

It was four years after Aloy had begun training to win the Proving, and she had gone exploring —snuck off— without Rost because he had left early that morning with a vague non-excuse of important business and told her to stay in the cabin. She had attempted to follow his instruction at first —she didn't **mean** to stress Rost out, not intentionally anyway— but even her Focus could only provide so much entertainment and boredom —coupled with overconfidence in the skills she'd been honing for four years— saw her slipping out of the cabin and exploring the nearby hillsides.

She had intended to stay close to the cabin even as she entertained herself by examining a rabbit trail through the purple tint of her Focus. But the steep hillsides and sheer cliffs around Rost's home were treacherous even to one who had lived there all her life. All it took was one moment where she wasn't paying enough attention. One loose stone underfoot that she hadn't prepared for to send her pitching to the side and over the edge of the towering cliffside outlook.

Aloy screamed in terror, fingers scrambling for purchase and hands throbbing in pain as she managed to stop herself just in time with a harsh jerk. She hung there desperately, feet trying and failing to find purchase while her hands stung from the strain of supporting all her weight. The ledge her fingers were clenching was too narrow and her grip too shaky to haul herself up, and no footholds could be found to stabilize her position on the rock face. Terror sung through her and, despite knowing that Rost was away on some unknown task and couldn't possibly help, Aloy couldn't stop the panicked cry that escaped her, "Rost! Rost! Help me! **Rost**!"

One hand slipped free and fear choked her at her lungs, clawing at her throat like a rabid beast. Her hand flailed desperately in an attempt to reclaim its hold on the cliff, nearly dislodging her one remaining limb and provoking another scream-. Then two hands only a bit bigger than her own suddenly clamped tight around her wrist and Aloy's scream was cut short with a gasp as she looked up. Blue-grey eyes in an oddly unreadable face —like the sky when it was thinking of rain— met hers and for a long moment, the world felt like it had stilled.

Then memory prodded her and Aloy felt another jolt of fear as she realized that the boy who had scarred her forehead four years ago was the one currently holding onto her wrist. If he wanted to, all he would have to do was pull her hand off of the ledge and let go and she would fall to her death.

The hands on her wrist tightened, "_Tekubi o tsukamu._" the sounds —were they words?— coming from the boy's mouth were flat and calm, spoken with the same tone as Rost predicting good hunting weather, and Aloy gawped in blank confusion at the sounds. There was a flash of something like dark impatience in his eyes and a hissed, "_Isoge_!" That sent chills up her spine. The sound —word?— was clearly a command of some kind, but Aloy had no idea what it was or what he wanted and her hand was getting so tired from holding her up-.

"**Aloy**!" Rost. The sound of Rost's voice and the unmistakable scramble of a bigger body climbing the path from which she had fallen sent a wave of relief through her so strong it almost made her cry.

Instead she shouted, "Rost! Help!"

Rost appeared a moment later, sliding to a halt on his stomach on the other side of the boy, who glanced at him briefly before refocusing on Aloy. Rost reached out a hand and Aloy immediately grabbed at it with her free one, which heralded a low, unintelligible mutter of, "Tch, _aitsu wa tekubi o tsukamudarōga, ma watashi wa mono ja nai_."

Rost didn't seem to hear the mutter as he recaptured Aloy's attention with a curt, "Brace your feet against the rocks, Aloy."

"There are no holds!"

"Doesn't matter. Just brace your feet flat against the rock and push up when I tell you to. Ready? One, two, **push**!" Aloy pushed as hard as she could the same moment Rost and the boy pulled hard on her arms. The next moment, she was back on the path, winded, hands scraped and her midriff throbbing from her impact with the rocks … but alive and safe once more.

The boy scooted backward wordlessly as Rost pulled her to her feet and loomed over her, checking her over with brisk movements and hands that were shaking only slightly before he straightened and growled, "Aloy…"

Aloy ducked her head, the terror from her near fall wiping away her usual defiance, "I'm sorry…"

Rost's eyes remained hard and Aloy just **knew** she was in for a hiding when they got home, "I **told you** to stay in the cabin until my return."

"I got bored. I didn't mean to go so far-."

Rost cut off her excuse with a curt hand gesture, "You shouldn't have been out here in the first place! If we hadn't been on the trail and heard you scream-." His jaw tightened, then forcibly unclenched, "You could have **died**, Aloy. These hills are **dangerous**, especially alone. When I give an order, I expect it-." His eyes flicked off to the side for a moment before he sighed harshly through his nose, "We will discuss this once we are home. Follow."

Aloy shuffled into place behind Rost as he set off back toward the cabin, chastised, frightened, and tired now that the adrenaline was wearing off. The combination of those things kept her in a compliant, unobservant daze for the rest of the trip home. The daze ended when they got to the cabin and Rost turned around. Aloy braced for the usual pre-hiding lecture, but instead he focused on something just past her shoulder and barked, "Boy. Here." He gestured firmly to a spot near his feet, and Aloy startled when the boy who had both scarred her and then helped her ghosted obediently over to where Rost had gestured, his moccasin-clad feet even quieter than a fox's paws.

Trepidation was pushed aside by curiosity and wary irritation as she blurted, "What is **he** doing here?"

Thankfully, Rost answered her question rather than tell her to be quiet and contemplate her recent disobedience, "His name is Bast, and he has just been outcast from the tribe. The High Matriarchs ordered me to look after him until he is old enough to survive on his own." At the sound of his name, the boy glanced from Rost to Aloy with the same inscrutable expression on his face as before.

Aloy mentally flailed at that revelation, "**Why**? He isn't motherless! And why would the Matriarchs tell you to do anything? I thought they couldn't talk to outcasts!"

Rost huffed through his nose, "The High Matriarchs are exempt from that law should the need arise and they were gracious enough to show mercy to the boy where many others would dare not. I'm sure some people would have rather the boy die in the wilderness with no shelter or food."

"But **why**?" Because yeah, she kind of hated the boy for scarring her head and calling her No-Mother, but she didn't think he deserved to be thrown out and left to die somewhere. What could he —or his mother, because that's why Aloy was outcast— have done that the tribe thought he deserved that?

Rost glanced between her and the boy before he gestured from the boy to the door of the cabin, "Inside. Go." The boy glanced from Rost's hand to the door before he hesitantly padded —just as silently as before— onto the porch. He paused when he actually reached the door and look over his shoulder, a silent question in too-serious raincloud eyes. Rost repeated his gesture with a firm, "**Go**. Wait inside. Understand? **Wait inside**."

There was a flash of something —anger? Indignation?— before the boy opened the cabin door and disappeared inside, shutting it behind him. Once he was out of sight, Rost turned to Aloy, an oddly weary look on his face, "A little over a week ago, Bast went missing from one of the children's berry gatherings. He was only found two days ago, wandering the forest just outside Mother's Heart. No one knows where he went or what exactly happened to him … but the boy has been struck mad."

Aloy felt a chill go up her spine and the echoes of the boy's strange nonsense words flashed through her mind, "Mad?"

"Yes. He no longer understands human language, instead speaking nothing but meaningless nonsense. He is violent when touched and he recognizes no one of the tribe … not even his own parents." Rost looked very sad over that last part, his gaze going briefly distant and far away.

Then his gaze sharpened and he crouched down to better look Aloy in the eyes, "Listen well, Aloy. If it were not for Matriarch Teersa's intervention, that boy would have been put to death immediately to prevent his madness from spreading. Instead, he has been outcast until such a time as his mind returns to him … or All-Mother claims his life. He will be staying with us until either of those events occur or he proves too dangerous to be around. You are never to be alone with him, understand? Treat him well, but **do not** be in his presence unless I am there to watch over you."

Aloy hesitated, "But … he helped me." He hadn't had to grab her wrist and keep her from falling until Rost got there, but he had. No matter how much she disliked him, that had to count for something … didn't it?

Rost tilted his head to concede her point, "He did, and I am grateful for it, but those driven mad are as unpredictable as the wind, Aloy. You cannot be assured that compassion shown today will not turn to cruelty tomorrow. A hand in aid extended by a madman can plunge a knife into your back the next moment without any reason that the sane can comprehend. While Bast will stay with us unless he proves irredeemable, do not think that such actions equal trust. I will be watching him closely, and so should you. Do you understand, Aloy?"

Aloy nodded solemnly, trying to hide the splinters of fear pushing into her heart at the thought of someone so unpredictable being anywhere near her and vowing to keep constant vigil, "I understand, Rost."

He stood to his feet, "Good. Now, on to the matter of your punishment." Aloy began to whine a protest, but Rost would hear nothing of it, insisting that, mad guest or no, her disobedience would receive the same severity of discipline it always had. Especially since it had risked her life.

Rost's blows upon her rump were hard and firm, but —as she would only admit years later— not overly so and not cruel. The punishment was short and to the point, and his hands gentle afterward as he stroked her hair with a worried touch and led the way inside.

Aloy's stinging backside and threatening tears were swallowed immediately at the sight of Bast curled up in the far corner of the cabin nearest the fireplace, watching them with blank, inscrutable eyes. There was nothing in his hands to threaten her with, and he didn't move from his corner even as Rost inspected the cabin for signs of mischief. Just sat and watched and looked as dangerous to Aloy as any machine or predator ever had. All her curiosity about him, her hesitant defense of him for trying to help her, retreated into the corners of her mind in an instant. Because there was something dangerous beyond words about the way he sat there, back to the wall, legs curled underneath him like a Watcher ready to spring up in an instant. Something about the way he studied his surroundings —and her and Rost— with eyes that seemed too dark and emotionless to be blue.

Aloy didn't protest when Rost tied the boy's hands to separate posts after supper with a long cord to keep him from sneaking up on their bedrolls in the night. But despite the safety measure and her faith in Rost, Aloy barely slept at all. She was too hyper-aware of the figure half-curled in the far corner amid the nest of furs Rost had sacrificed from his own bed, silent and watching, to get any meaningful rest.

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**Rough Translations:**

**Tekubi o ****tsukamu = grab my wrist**

**Isoge! = Hurry!**

**Tch, aitsu wa tekubi o tsukamudarōga, ma watashi wa mono ja nai = Tch, she'll grab his wrist, but not mine.**


	2. Chapter 2: Mad World

**Chapter Two: Mad World**

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Wood in the flickering fire cracked —_bones, bones trapped in teeth, ground and mauled until they snapped, loud and eerie even over the sound of screams_—, smoke tickled his throat faintly —_ash and decay, destruction untold for miles and miles_—, and shadows played in every corner of the room —_coming, they're coming, they're _**_here_**_ don't-breathe-don't-move-can't-fight-can't-move_—. Wind whispered through the cracks of the wood cabin —_too fragile, too dark, so poor a defense it wasn't defense at all but a _**_trap_**— setting every nerve on fire behind the impassive mask he kept firmly on his features.

And he'd thought being locked up in that Astral's-cursed cave had been the worst thing these strangers could do to him. Caves weren't anywhere near as bad as this. Caves were solid, he would **know** which direction the threats would come from in a cave —_unless it was a maze like Balouve Mines or filled with those blasted ceiling-clinging Arachne_—. But this place? This was **so much worse**. Every sound set his nerves on fire, every whiff of woodsmoke taunted him with memories, every shifting shadow was a daemon's birth. His conscious mind knew that his surroundings were none of those things —there was sunlight here, and these people wouldn't have survived a week with their current technology if daemons had existed within a hundred miles of their village— but his subconscious was far from convinced.

It really didn't help that his hands were tied with cord in a way that kept him from protecting his vitals with anything but his legs. Or that while he could free himself if he had to —the cords weren't tied tightly enough to keep him from dislocating his fingers and sliding free—, the only weapons he had to his name were the arrowhead he'd hidden in his belt and the tiny carving knife he'd managed to steal and hide in his right moccasin-boot while in the village.

Hardly adequate replacements for Ashura and Suiton. Or even Holy Shield. Or any of his weapons really.

Pity they were gone. Or, he was gone. He wasn't sure which it was at this point. Did it count as being gone when you had been forcibly returned —cast out— to the place you originally came from? Because it felt like it. This place wasn't home anymore, this place was so far from home it was laughable.

Another crack of —_armor-bone-cartilage_— wood that had him suppressing a flinch only through sheer practice —_hold still, hold still. Lots of daemons were blind as rocks as long as you just _**_held still_**_ and _**_stayed silent_**— and he forced himself to breathe and think about something else. Anything else.

Like how his life had gotten so badly messed up in the first place.

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Bast looked up from his half-hearted attempts at gathering berries —berry-gathering at his age, he should be training to be a Brave right now!— at the sound of a stick breaking. Eyes as silver-bright as a machine's bones stared at him curiously from the bushes with an intelligence that was far more pronounced than any other creature he'd seen before. Bast straightened up slowly, staring at what little he could see of the … creature … from where it studied him in return. It looked like a strider. Well, if a strider was very small and spindly and had grown fur that was the color of fresh spring water, had eyes on either side of its head instead of the front, and three stubby horns —one in the center of its forehead, one on either side of its head pointed back—.

It shook the extra long fur growing all down its neck —_a red mane, he would remember years later, redder than any natural mane, the color of spilled blood that had yet to dry—_, then stared at him even as he gaped at it. As silly as it sounded, it seemed to be making a decision about him. Then, just before Bast could make up his mind to call for the nearest adult and point the creature out, it turned and disappeared into the underbrush with a flash of a red-tufted, whipcord tail.

Bast would never understand afterward what possessed him to follow it without telling anyone, without even saying a word. He just plunged into the undergrowth with all the stealth of a ten year old who took his Brave training far too seriously and his self-preservation not seriously enough. The creature —_Kirin, he would learn later_— led him down the hill, away from the village and the berry bushes, away from the stream known for its easy fishing, away from the training grounds all the children used to practice their budding skills as Braves.

It led him around corners and trees, past inattentive adults in their watchtowers, always just close enough, just slow enough for him to see it and think he could catch it, but never slow enough for him to actually do so. It looked over its shoulders sometimes, flashes of silver eyes and red fur drawing him onward like a fish trapped on a line. Onward he chased it, so focused on his goal that he didn't notice when the trees changed their shape, when the hills behind him smoothed out and vanished into deep valleys and glades and the chuckles of streams changed to the roars of far-off waterfalls.

What he did notice was when he stumbled around a corner in pursuit of the creature and instead came face to face with a battle between what he would later come to know as an injured garula and a pack of falxfang. At the time, all he knew was that five creatures that looked like a jumbled up mix of skeletons, fur, and really big teeth were yipping and howling as they attacked something huge, four-legged, big tusked and **loud** and that the entire scene was the most utterly foreign —utterly **wrong**— thing he had ever seen in his life.

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_The naivety of his younger self in regards to the sheer magnitude of difference between a garula and a couple of falxfangs and something _**_truly_**_ wrong to nature was staggering, now that he thought back on it. How had he ever survived those first few days? Oh right. Luck and the Astrals._

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For obvious reasons, Bast screamed at the sight of the strange, lumbering creature roaring and shaking its tusks in an effort to scare off the howling, jabbering, salivating monsters around it.

For equally obvious reasons, that was a very stupid thing to do.

The falxfang turned on him in an instant, lunging for the sound of weaker, frightened prey. Bast's terror held him in place for what would have been two seconds too long had not the angry, pain-maddened garula taken the falxfangs' distraction as a chance to attack rather than flee. One of the predators screamed as it was batted into a tree, the others whirled back to face their original prey with yipping jeers that finally unfroze Bast's feet from the ground and sent him running blindly the other way into a forest far thicker and wilder than any he had seen before.

He ran for what felt like hours, stumbling over rocks, banging into leaning tree trunks and blindly swatting aside the low-hanging tangles of vines and creepers that draped down from the canopy. The familiar woods of his home never reappeared and none of his breathless, panicked cries for help were answered by anything other than the jeering calls of foreign wildlife.

Bast only stopped when he slipped on a rock and tumbled down-down-down a steep hillside into one of the deep lakes that the jungle so effortlessly hid and fed with gurgling waterfalls of mountain snowmelt. The water's chill went straight to his bones as he splashed back to the surface, coughing and shaking so badly he could barely tread water, every nerve on fire and hyper-alert.

Still blinking water out of his eyes, he spotted the slinking, glittering movement of several … somethings sliding into the lake with him, all scales and spikes and fins that were of no fish he'd ever seen. Animal instinct sent to him swimming as fast as he could for the nearest shore that wasn't in the direction of the movement, and adrenaline dulled the pain of his fingers as he clawed his way up the bare rock that he didn't notice was marked with letters and symbols until later.

He made it onto the rock just in time to avoid the rush of parting water and the unmistakable snap of large teeth coming together where his ankle had been less than a second before. Bast crawled backward, heaving for both air and sobbing hysterically as he stared at the thing —_a gurangatch, too old to move fast enough, too powerful and respected by its frenzy to be denied the first chance at new prey_— slipping back beneath the lake surface.

Terrified eyes skipped across the rippling lake surface, counting the shapes visible in the clear, dark water. Two, four, seven, **ten**. All circling near his rock, all long and dangerous and hungry-looking. All like nothing he had ever seen or dreamed of. He wanted to look away. He was too afraid to look away. He wanted to close his eyes and wake up safe and sound in the village, with his mother and father and uncle and grandaunt. He dared not close his eyes for fear the things in the water would decide to climb up and get him.

He would have run away again, but adrenaline could only do so much to stave off exhaustion and somehow, despite his terror at the denizens of the lake, he was more afraid of the thick trees and alien cries beyond the narrow shore than he was of the danger he could actually **see**. So he stayed. Rooted in place on that large, flat rock, watching the gurangatch swim endlessly back and forth, wondering why they didn't just climb out after him until exhaustion-induced sleep finally claimed him.

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_That irrational fear of entering the jungle had saved his life, ironically. Because the rock he'd clambered onto in his panic wasn't just any rock. It was engraved and blessed with the power of the Oracles. An old Haven that still hummed with the power to warn off both daemons and wild animals that would inflict harm. He often wondered if, somehow, his finding that rock and learning to trust those unknown symbols and the power they pressed into his skin was intentional. He wouldn't put it entirely past the forces at work in that world, but in the end he supposed it didn't matter. Not anymore._

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He survived a week in that forest. The Haven quickly became his only safe place. It was a place where the gurangatch wouldn't come, a place he could retreat to after retrieving strange berries —miraculously not one of the many poisonous kinds that he might have stumbled upon— from the nearby bushes before any of the falxfang or mandrakes or cranky mushussu —or in one notable instance, a passing malboro— could pop out of the underbrush and kill him.

There was a small waterfall that flowed alongside the Haven, just close enough that he could reach out and collect water with his hands to drink, and the fire pit already carved into the Haven's center only needed some of the plentiful fuel near his berry bushes —_and many, many, many blisters on his hands from rubbing the sticks together_— to start a fire that kept him from freezing to death after miraculously surviving that first night when his clothes had been soaked —_only magic, literal magic, had saved him that time, not that he knew it until later_—.

It wasn't until after he'd survived that week in the jungle —_a week of endless tears and terror and confusion—_ that rescue came in the form of a group of men, dressed as strangely as the rest of the world was strange. They stumbled across him on his way back to the Haven from berry picking. Their startled exclamations were foreign and chattering like mountain brooks and bird song, coming from the same direction as danger usually did and too alien to even identify as words. Fear sent Bast flying back to the Haven, his berries dropped and forgotten as his mind only processed the need to get to safety.

Their ability to follow him onto the rock —something no other creature had been able to do— had been a nasty shock. But the men softened their voices to comforting tones and they didn't lash out when Bast struggled and bit when they came too close at first. They backed off enough to calm him down, then won him over with gentle offers of blankets and food —real food, not berries and hurriedly snatched fallen fruit— and his own desperate need for human contact. Even contact he couldn't understand and that didn't look like anyone of his tribe.

They were dressed in white jackets with deep navy etching that felt a bit like tanned hide, but shone in the jungle sunlight like polished river stones —_polished leather, uniforms of their profession and a mark of their loyalties—_. Their legs were clad in dark green pants made of a rough weave that didn't feel like any kind of fabric or animal skin Bast had ever seen and had more pockets sewn onto and inside them than any one person should need —_until, of course, they did, which was why Bast refused to be teased years later when he insisted on every pants he had save for his formal uniform being lined with more pockets than humanly possible—_.

After calming him down, feeding him, and treating the many burningly painful blisters on his hands as best they could, they spoke for several minutes over his head, all quick, murmured chatters that were incomprehensible to him at the time —_they even called the home of their employer, not that he'd even known what a phone was back then—_. Finally, the largest of them —_Miguel, a garula of a man who had been career military before he retired from it to become a groundskeeper—_ lifted the exhausted and unresisting Bast into his arms and they carried him through the jungle, away from his safe rock and to the second milestone of his life changes.

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_He could still picture it. Even after all the years that had passed. He could still close his eyes and see the moment the thick trees and curling vines had parted to reveal the towering stone manor with its spires and high windows, seeming to grow out of the trees and curling green life as it watched over the lands from a giant island of stone that, impossibly, floated in the air as if it weighed nothing at all._

_He could still remember being carried across one of the many narrow stone bridges that seemed to anchor the floating island of stone and its impossibly tall, stately building that put every building in his village to utter shame. Taste the sweet flower scent that twined the air all around and recall how the sun had turned the many old, gold-laced statues into beacons of light with its reflections. How that light had glinted off the golden hair of the ethereal, finely dressed woman who met them in the arching entryway, her eyes calm and motherly and her form radiating a power Bast had never before touched or felt or conceived._

_In that moment, he had believed that he had been rescued from hell and taken instead to All-Mother's Embrace._

_A part of him still believed that really. Being welcomed into her house, cared for as one of her own children, was by far one of his most precious memories._

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The woman —_at the time, he'd been more than half convinced she was All-Mother herself—_ had murmured soft words to the men who rescued him, listening to their answers even as she and her armor-clad guards had escorted them deeper into the building made purely of white stone and precious metals instead of the wood logs and baked mud he had known all his life.

They took him to a white room that smelled odd and faintly stung his nose —_the disinfectant smell all hospitals and med-stations seemed to naturally emit, something he would become all too familiar with over the years—_. It was lined with high, gleaming metal tables and beds that stood much farther off the ground than he was used to. The beds were cushioned with something so much softer than straw —_he'd believed them to be stuffed with clouds at the time, the white seemed to make it plausible— _and he'd been gently placed on one while another lady in white spoke soothing nonsense as she poked and prodded and tutted. He'd been given a strangely colored drink that made all of his throbbing, infected blisters disappear without a trace seemingly in exchange for some of his blood —_Doctors. Did they ever _**_not_**_ take blood when they had the chance?_—.

After that and several failed attempts on their part to make him speak their language, the men who had rescued him were dismissed and he was whisked away by the woman in the white coat and several men in coats just like hers to a stone tub of warm water. The golden-haired woman did not follow, just watched him go with calm, curious, gentle eyes. The white coated people insisted on helping him bathe —_he'd been humiliated at the time, but seeing as he hadn't known what shampoo or conditioner were, it had probably been for the best—_ and on taking away his tattered, bloody tribe clothes in favor of their own soft white and blue garments that felt like mist on his skin.

They kept him in the room with rows of white beds and fed him soup and bread that were like nothing he'd ever tasted. He had fallen asleep to their soft chattering and gentle touches, wondering distantly why the people who lived in All-Mother's bosom did not speak the words of men.

Time came and went without him for a while after that —_he'd fallen into a fever in a delayed reaction to his first potion, his body unused to any magic at all, let alone the potent kind used in healing—_. People came and went with their meaningless words and by the time he woke up with all of his senses again, a week had gone by —_or so he was informed later, when he could understand their words and they could finally ask him questions on how he had gotten there and why he had been dressed so strangely—_.

Bast sat up, curious and aware and unafraid for the first time in what felt like forever. He took in the room and realized that he had been moved again. He was no longer in the room with rows of white beds and stinging smell, but in a room big enough to fit any of the tribe's cabins inside it. Windows larger than doors let sunlight pour inside and everywhere he looked there was something strange and beautiful and unknown. Paintings so lifelike he might have expected them to move, glittering engravings on the walls and ceiling, a floor that was not dirt or wood but stone covered in a soft, fuzzy material that was like no fur he'd ever touched before.

He slid out of the bed that was easily big enough to hold four of him and cautiously explored his surroundings on wobbly legs. He took a long moment to stare in awe out the windows —_see-through walls really—_ and take in the wild landscape of deep forests, crashing waterfalls, and floating stone islands all from the safety of the room where the monsters could not reach him.

Then the door behind him opened and Bast whirled around to see who was entering. Blond hair, far silkier and golden than any of his tribe slid across slender shoulders and pale blue eyes like a cloudless spring sky peeked at him from above a bundle of flowers the color of the sky in summer. Delicate lips curled upward in a smile that reached her blue eyes and made them as warm as the sun, "_Ah. Ohayōgozaimasu- ma, 'konnichi wa' yoi tekisetsuda to omoimasu."_

Then, before he could become confused over her soft flow of strange words, she stepped fully into the room, set down her painted pot of flowers on a nearby low table and approached him. She stopped a respectful distance away, like he was an animal that might startle and held out a hand, palm down, in offering while the other pointed at herself, "Luna." Her extended hand then turned over in a silent question that also shone in her eyes and the tiny smile on her lips. The sheer simplicity of her actions, of her single word, told Bast exactly what she wanted of him.

He hesitantly smiled back at her and placed one hand in hers while resting the other over his heart "Bast. _O- Omomasushu…_?"

Her delighted laugh at his mangling of the word —_at his hopeless but well-meaning ignorance_— seemed to light up the air as much as her blue eyes and took his breath away with the sheer warmth of it that seemed to fill the room and tingle up his arm from their connected hands —_her magic, as welcoming to him as she was and just as precious_—.

That moment of innocent greetings and hope and wonder —_of meeting Luna, seeing her smile and hearing her laugh and feeling her touch of both magic and hands for the first time_— would become the second milestone in his life … as well as his most precious of memories.

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_Somehow, it was ironic —in a bitter, horrible way— that Luna's smile, his most precious and treasured memory, was also an integral part of his worst and most tortured one._


	3. Chapter 3: Contagious Madness

**New chapter! Yay! Not going to do a double-post this time because I'm conserving chaps. Sorry it's so short, but don't worry, the chaps will get longer as the story picks up speed.**

**Copyright Disclaimer: I do not own Horizon Zero Dawn, Final Fantasy XV, or any references in this story. The only things I own are my interpretations of the characters and the plot.**

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**Chapter Three: Contagious Madness**

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The boy never slept at night. Several nights now over the past two weeks, Rost had stayed awake in secret, watching his newest charge for signs of violent madness or heartless cunning. But while there was cunning in flickers and flashes, the violence, the emptiness of someone who's soul had rotted away from the inside out, was absent. In its place was a boy who alternated between training himself to the brink whenever Rost let him have a moment to himself and falling asleep within seconds so long as he was ensconced in a patch of sunlight. A boy who spent each and every night —no matter how exhausted from a day of doing chores or training under Rost's gaze— as still as stone and as silent as the dead even in his breathing, the only sign of life being the reflection of firelight in alert, haunted eyes.

Rost had seen that stillness —that haunted quiet— before. But not in those gone mad. In himself. In the eyes of those broken few who escaped the captivity of the Carja's Sun Ring but knew it was still too late for them to return home. In the warriors who had seen too many of the horrors the world beyond the Embrace held. In the survivors of shattered cabins on the border, who knew that when the Carja came, no Brave would be there in time to help them should they be caught. The ones who knew firsthand that if you moved, if you were seen, there was something far worse than death waiting for you in the shadows.

The eyes of warrior, a survivor, a Death-Seeker. One who clung to life and reason only by his blood-coated fingertips and the bone-weary determination that came from being so exhausted that the knowledge of how to **stop** was left forgotten somewhere on the trail.

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_Like hunting killers, murderers, across forsaken deserts and through storms made of dust instead of rain or snow. The names of his wife and child being the only things left after the biting sand had stripped away all else. The sound of their voices, now forever silenced, being the only chant that could pierce his haze of grief-fueled hate._

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Those were not eyes any child should have. Especially not after being missing for a mere week.

But there it was. As plain as the snow on the mountains in winter. And, underneath the age and weariness, the haunted glaze, there was also something else that surprised Rost. Kindness. Patience. Only to Aloy —Rost himself received only the most grudging of respect in the form of silent obedience and a lack of struggle every night when he tied the boy's hands for Aloy's safety— but the emotions were there, exposed in silent gestures and complete non-aggression to the girl who —despite her fear and Rost's many warnings— grew ever bolder and more curious around Bast.

It was in the way the boy discreetly pretended not to notice when she inched closer to him during chores, the way he immediately stopped his current activity and focused his sole attention on her when she mustered up the courage to speak to him —a courtesy even Rost didn't receive, usually having to settle for an ear tilted in his direction or a brief, blank glance—. Bast had even, just a day previous, called out what sounded like an encouragement in his nonsense babble of speech during Aloy's training —training Rost had grudgingly and cautiously allowed the boy to join a few days ago, if only because it was the most efficient way to keep an eye on the both of them and Bast seemed to enjoy it even more than Aloy—.

All in all, the boy seemed to have a madness very unlike any Rost had ever seen. If it weren't for his lack of understanding human speech and some of his quirks —fear of random things, a near pathological hate of the dark, total lack of understanding about certain things every child his age in the tribe should already know by heart—, Rost wouldn't even think the boy mad. Broken, yes. Haunted by nightmares and memories only he could see, certainly. Far older than his physical years, absolutely. But mad?

Unless it was a new kind of madness —which it might, he wouldn't know enough about such medical matters to tell—, then Rost could only conclude that there was something he was missing. Something even the High Matriarchs were missing. Probably in relation to what had happened to the boy when he disappeared for a week.

"Aloy, _yamete kudasai_. _Anata dake ga kizutsukeru deshou_." The exasperated tone drew Rost out of his thoughts and he straightened up as Bast left his self-appointed task of lying prone and using his arms to push his body —rigid as a board— up and down over and over and instead approached Aloy. Aloy paused from where she was struggling to successfully wield the new spear Rost had recently given her against the training dummies and frowned at Bast. She already knew the basic forms, but that was with a long pole that had a sharpened point, not with one that was weighted differently because of the metal blade on its end. It didn't help that she'd always had trouble with a spear, always trying and failing to mimic Rost's greater strength and reach rather than rely on her own natural agility like he'd told her to.

"What?" Her voice had a wary, frustrated bite to it that seemed to roll off of Bast like water off of geese feathers.

The boy held his hands out to Aloy, crooking his fingers in clear beckoning for the spear, "_Kore wa miru ni wa amarini mo itaidesu. Hora, hirō sa sete_."

Rost tensed as Aloy handed it over to Bast with only a few seconds of hesitation. He might be puzzled by —and even sympathetic to— the boy's odd mix of sanity and madness, but that didn't mean he trusted him with a **weapon**. The only training Bast had been allowed to participate in were the brave trails and the survival training that didn't require a bow or spear. Rost's hands drifted to his bow as Bast carefully felt the weight of the spear in his hands, a thoughtful gleam in his blue-grey eyes. Rost didn't want to have to hurt —or, All-Mother forbid, kill— the boy, but he would if it was necessary to protect Aloy. Bast would not be the first person to reveal a dark, violent nature once given a weapon.

Blue-grey eyes flickered to Rost once, taking in the older man's tense profile before they returned to examining the spear. Shifting it carefully to one hand, Bast used the other to shoo Aloy a safe distance away from the training dummy. His feet slid near-soundlessly across the dirt as he dropped into a low, wide position, the spear tucked against his back in some kind of reverse grip Rost had never seen before. There was a moment of still focus, then Bast began moving. Slow and steady, hand over hand, the spear rotated in his grasp, gliding through the air to come to a stop just before it could hit the dummy. Moccasins slowly slid through the dirt as he circled the dummy, jabbing and slicing in a way that looked more like some of the ritual dances Rost had witnessed during his time in the Carja lands than any Nora combat form.

Aloy trailed a safe distance behind Bast, watching every move and mimicking his feet and hand positions without prompting as he weaved his way around the target. His movements gradually grew faster and harder, impacting the target with deep thuds that held more power than Rost expected from a boy his size. Then Rost realized that most of the power came Bast's movements, each one designed to add momentum and bodyweight to the swings and jabs, to use the weight of the spearhead to his advantage with only minimal risk of leaving himself open to attack as so many Braves that Rost had known ended up doing —often fatally, all it took was one lucky arrow or for the enemy to be faster at recovering and stabbing than you—. The spear became a blur of wood and steel that hummed and crashed against the target over and over again.

Then, as abruptly as the display began, it stopped. Bast stepped back, bowed at the waist to the target —as if it were an honorable opponent he had just sparred with and not a simple training dummy—, and looked over at Aloy. Aloy smiled at Bast, and Rost could see some of her wariness —that had already begun to fade under the force of her curiosity— recede in favor of breathing, "That was amazing!"

A smile, tiny and as brief as a lightning flash, flickered over the boy's face as he handed the spear back to Aloy and began coaxing her into position with nudges from his fingertips and low, incomprehensible mutters. Rost felt his hand slowly relax from his bow and paced closer to observe the lesson. Because that was what it was, for all that Bast did not speak anything that made sense, his hands were gentle and sure and his movements patiently exaggerated so Aloy could learn by example alone. Once Aloy had learned the first few basic swipes and jabs to Bast's satisfaction, the boy retreated to the nearest sunbaked rock, a tired glaze that Rost had come to recognize all too well settling in his gaze.

The glaze peeled away the moment Rost tentatively settled down next to him on the rock. Blue-grey eyes —too old, too wary, a warrior-stranger among unknown peoples— watched him, and Rost made a point to keep his body language loose and calm, "What was that?"

A flicker of confusion and Rost tried to clarify by pointing at where Aloy was assaulting the training dummy with her newly learned moves, "That. What was that?"

Confusion cleared, "_Kata_. _Sōjutsu_, _maa_, _tango nanida ke…_? Tru- Truaining?"

Rost hid his surprise. This was the first time the boy had made any real effort to speak to him, and the first word in human language he'd made any effort to use aside from Rost's and Aloy's names, "Training?"

"_Hai_. Truaining …" Bast made a helpless gesture at the sky, unable to find whatever word he was looking for, "use su-pear. Training use spear," he folded his arms over his chest in a pantomime of defense, "_bōei_," he then swept them out like an invisible blade scything the sky, "_to kōgeki no tame_."

Rost mulled over the mix of gestures and nonsense, trying to understand what the boy was trying to convey. A tentative translation came to him after several long moments of thinking, "You have training in the spear, for both defense and offense." _But no one in the tribe uses such movements or combat forms. So who taught you, and when did you learn? _And were those who taught him somehow responsible for the boy's madness? He glanced over to the boy to ask another question, only to discover that Bast had already drifted off in the bright afternoon sunlight.

Rost let him sleep —the boy didn't get nearly enough as it was, between his nighttime watches and his frequent nightmares that drove him to train to exhaustion— until it was time to move on to the next task of the day. Then he stood up and called to Aloy, knowing the sound would wake up Bast as well, "Aloy, we must hunt for Odd Grata. That is enough training for the moment." Aloy made a protesting noise, but Rost stayed firm, "**Follow**, Aloy. It will be good target practice for you."

Bast was already back on his feet, alert in a way that could almost fool someone into thinking he didn't spend all his nights wide awake in silent terror. Aloy finally set her spear down in favor of her bow, trotting up to Rost with a mulish, "_Hai_…"

Bast went still in shock while Rost immediately jerked to a stop and rounded on her, "Aloy! Do not speak Bast's nonsense. I have no desire to find out if his madness is catching."

Aloy frowned, "It's not **nonsense**, it means 'yes'."

Rost glowered to hide his worry, "If you want to say 'yes', then just say it like every other person. None of this gibberish that Bast spouts."

Aloy pointedly said nothing about obeying his command, and Rost was unable to force her on the matter. She was as stubborn about it as she had been with her Focus, and only the memory of how useful the trinket had proven to be kept him from being even more vocal in his protests. The look of pure, unadulterated relief and pleasure on Bast's face at hearing someone else speak his gibberish admittedly also had something to do with it —for all that he was wary of the boy, he did not wish him ill, and anything that gave him pleasure without endangering others couldn't be all bad—.

Even so, it made him uneasy deep in the pit of his stomach when Bast immediately sidled up to Aloy and began teaching her more of his nonsense. Nonsense that Aloy picked up with alarming speed no matter what Rost said on the matter, frequently babbling out short phrases of the gibber instead of using normal words, or pointing things out and having Bast tell her what he thought they were called.

The only upside to it was that Bast, in turn, began to pick up more real words at a faster rate, exchanging real and nonsense words with Aloy like a shrewd haggler at market. Rost attempted to teach Bast real words without the nonsense in exchange, but it didn't work nearly as well. The boy was stubborn about that.

The point at which he gave up was not long after he tentatively trusted Bast with a small hunting bow to help with hunting supper —over six months after Bast was first outcast and three months since letting the boy go about unrestrained at night, but only a month after Bast finally started to intentionally sleep at night with any success—. He realized it was fruitless to try to prevent the use of nonsense between them the day he looked up from a task to hear them holding a choppy conversation in Bast's nonsense. He had frowned and barked, "Enough babble you two, focus on your tasks."

Bast rolled his eyes and muttered a quick, "_Whatever, stupid old man._"

That immediately made Rost's hackles rise, "Watch your tongue, boy, I can still take you over my knee if I have to." Bast and Aloy both whipped their heads around to stare at him in shock and Rost wondered for a moment if they really thought he was old enough to be going deaf.

Then he realized that Bast hadn't been using real words when he said that.

Rost blinked, "Wait…"

Bast's expression shifted from it's usual shades of stoicism to something openly gleeful, "_You can understand me_!"

"No, I don't-." Rost's jaw snapped shut as he realized he'd just replied to nonsense again. He pinched the bridge of his nose while Aloy laughed in delight and Rost pondered briefly whether madness really **was** contagious. If it was, it was clearly too late for Rost to do anything about it, so he settled for a weary, "Just, please use real-." He paused, reconsidered his wording, then amended reluctantly, "Please use the language everyone **else** in the tribe uses when talking to me, or, All-Mother forbid, anyone else. We don't need the Tribe panicking over a contagious madness."

Bast raised his eyebrow and muttered something that Rost didn't fully understand, but sounded distinctly like "I'm not crazy". Rost did his best to just … not listen at that point. It didn't work, but sometimes it made the two children forget that he could understand them in their secretive babbling and he could catch them planning something stupid and stop them before they got themselves killed.

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**Rough Japanese Translations: "Aloy, gamete kudasai. Anata dake ga kizutsukeru deshō." = "Aloy, please stop. You're only going to hurt yourself."**

**"Kore wa miru ni wa amarini mo itadesu. Hora, hirō sa sete." = This is painful to watch. Look, let me show you."**

**"_Kata_. _Sōjutsu_, _maa_, _tango nanida ke...?" = (I actually lost my translation key for this in my notes, and Google Translate is being Dumb but the general gist of this sentence: "Kata, spear techniques, uhhh what is it called...?"_**

**_"boei to kogeki no tame," = (very roughly, going off my own dusty memory) "for defense and attack."_**


	4. Chapter 4: Prince, Oracle, Nora Boy

**Update! So soon! Hope you all enjoy because I love this disaster crossover so much.**

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**Chapter Four: The Prince, The Oracle, and The Nora Boy.**

Teaching Aloy to speak King's Speech was challenging and nostalgic all in one. She was a remarkably clever girl —maybe even a genius— and picked up words almost faster than he could teach them. Putting them in the correct order was hard for her, but that was alright. He'd had a beast of a time mastering that aspect of the language too. But Luna had always been a patient teacher, something he tried to emulate as he taught Aloy —and by extension Rost, who was never far away— to speak and understand the tongue he now held so dear. It was the language of not only Luna, but also his King after all.

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"Luna! Bast!" Luna looked up from where she was kneeling in the dirt, patiently teaching Bast about the various plants in the royal garden and what they were useful for. In the two years he had lived in Tenebrae as the ward of Queen Sylva, they had figured out that Bast responded much better to any lesson if it took place outside and involved something practical.

Vocabulary lessons had become infamous adventures through the mansion and grounds in search of new words to teach him, and his conversation skills had been honed by arguing the finer points of Tenebrae wildlife and herbology on top of all the maths, literature, and sciences the royal tutors had been striving to get him caught up on.

Bast —_a leggy, high-energy twelve year old by that point_— clambered to his feet at the approach of a familiar voice, absently holding out a hand to help Luna out of the dirt as he called, "Over here, Ravus-nii!"

Ravus Nox Fleuret —_such an annoying mouthful, it had taken Bast forever to understand the purpose of last names beyond adding emphasis to the disapproving tone of the tutors_—, elder brother of Luna and Bast both, rounded the corner, his expression fondly exasperated, "I thought I would find the two of you out here rolling in the dirt like savages."

Luna giggled softly as she took Bast's hand and pulled herself up, "We were not **rolling**, _aniue_, we were gardening."

Ravus huffed and placed a hand on each of their heads to ruffle their hair. He ignored Bast's playful growl of indignation as he spoke, "Well, you two need to come inside and clean up, probably change too. Mother says we are going to be receiving some very important guests in a few hours, and I doubt she will appreciate having to introduce her daughter and her ward looking like **that**."

Both of them looked down at their respective outfits, taking in the dirt and grass stains marring once pristine white and grey fabric. Their hands were grimy from poking around the various plants and Bast's knees were scraped from where he had clambered up one of the imported Duscaen apple trees to retrieve a snack for himself and Luna. Luna's hair had a few twigs hidden in it from their escapade through the garden maze and her white slip-on shoes were her favorite pair, the ones with a myriad of scuffs and faded shine marks on them.

Luna's ears turned slightly pink and Bast flexed his hands in unease. If they showed up to a guest greeting looking as they did now, Queen Sylva would definitely be angry —_considering the fact that a part of Bast still subconsciously thought of Queen Sylva as a human version of All-Mother, the thought of attracting her anger of terrifying, even though she had never raised a hand against him—_. Luna cleared her throat, formal even at age twelve because of her strict Oracle training, "Of course. Thank you for informing us, _aniue_, we shall go prepare at once. Come, Bast."

Bast darted after Luna with a quick "thank you" thrown over his shoulder at the amused Ravus. The two clattered their way into the manor, only separating when they reached their respective rooms and the servants appeared out of nowhere —_he had learned several stealth tips from the servants during those two years, but even after he became basically invisible to everyone else when he wished, they would always have him outclassed_— to help them prepare.

For Bast, it was a whirlwind of muttering manservants and woodsy shampoos —_he had put his foot down on floral scented shampoo as soon as he knew enough of the language to do so, he was not a flower and didn't want to smell like one_—, stiffly formal outfit unearthed from his wardrobe, and a practiced maidservant wrestling his shoulder-length blond hair into some semblance of submission.

It was a flurry of organized chaos he had experienced several times before over the last two years, but one that still overwhelmed him sometimes, particularly in regards to his clothing. A part of him was still very much the tribe boy who thought a tunic and leggings with a bit of facepaint and maybe a necklace was the height of formality. Not four or more layers of clothing in the form of a white undershirt, a white button-up shirt, black pants tucked into matching boots, a calf-length white frock coat that had a ridiculously high —and stiff— collar with sylleblossom blue edging and trim and the family crest of the Nox Fleuret family embroidered over his left breast —_and a cravat, because of course there was, it wasn't like he didn't already feel like one of Luna's dress-up dolls—_.

His shoulder-length hair got wrestled into tight bun at the base of his skull that was held in place by a pokey silver clip, then sprayed —_the part he hated most even over the outfit_— to keep at bay any wayward strands that might work loose —_he'd overheard the servants making a running bet on how long it would take his hair to work loose out of any given style, the record so far was an hour and ten minutes_—.

Topping off the entire —in his opinion unnecessary— ensemble were the twin daggers he'd been given for his last birthday —_really it was just the day they'd found him in the jungle, but he couldn't remember his original birthday anymore, so he didn't care—_. They were, to be honest, the only part of the process he liked. Their weight inside their conjoined scabbards against his left side was soothing. Even though the black-bound hilts were fanciful and engraved with both the royal crest and the image of the head of the Astrals, Bahamut, they were fighting-quality and deadly sharp. He'd been training with knives most of his life —even before somehow arriving in Tenebrae— and the red-tinted blades were one of the most familiar, comforting things he'd ever been given.

Finally released from the clutches of the servants, Bast fled his chambers as fast as he could without risking messing up his appearance —otherwise he'd have to go through the entire process from the beginning— and went to find Luna. Luna was still trapped in her chambers, being fluffed and pushed and primped into the formal hairstyle of an Oracle-In-Training by Madam Wen, so Bast instead padded off in search of Ravus.

Ravus was in the main hall, helping Queen Sylva oversee preparations to receive their incoming guests, and Bast had to wonder who was coming that was important enough to warrant all of the effort. Ravus flashed him a brief smile when he spotted the younger boy sidling up, "Luna?"

"Madam Wen."

Ravus nodded in understanding, "Ah." Madam Wen was the royal hairdresser specifically hired to take care of the female royals. She was also one of the few people who could terrify Bast into not being glued to Luna's side at every opportunity.

Bast examined the activity around them, "Who is coming?"

Ravus rested his hand briefly on the Bahamut-stylized hilt of his formal sword in a nervous gesture, "I actually do not know. Mother is being especially quiet about it, but it must be someone very important to warrant all of this." His forehead crinkled and he lowered his voice, "I suspect the King of Lucis, personally. I cannot think of any other guest that would require such secrecy as well as such formality."

Bast wracked his brain for several seconds before he remembered the geography and politics the tutors were just beginning to successfully drill into his head. Lucis was Tenebrae's oldest ally, and their royal family was tied very closely to the Nox Fleuret's, especially the Oracles. Which would explain the secrecy and all of the fancy preparations. Niflheim, Lucis's chief enemy, was Tenebrae's nearest neighbor.

Luna appeared out of the crowd not long after, coming to stand next to Bast without prompting as they waited for their guests to arrive. Queen Sylva gave them both an approving look before everyone moved outside to stand in front of the main doors.

The deep-throated growl of a car that always raised the hairs on the back of Bast's neck —_he had been told repeatedly what a car was and that it wasn't dangerous except at high speeds, but it still sounded like an angry machine to him and years of hearing the stories of the Metal Devil and the fallen machines were hard to overcome_— heralded the arrival of a very plain black car that pulled up to the bridge leading to Fenestala Manor.

The car stopped, then quieted, and from the car stepped a tall man with dark hair and clothing as fancy as anything the Nox Fleuret family used, only done completely in black with gold buttons and chains. Luna made a soft noise, like she had spotted something beautiful and precious and clutched Bast's fingers without warning. A shiver of her magic prickled against his skin with awe and joy and sorrow so deep it threatened to take his breath away as Luna breathed, "He's here."

Bast risked a glance at Luna's face in confusion. He didn't see what was so special about the man slowly making his way over the bridge toward the welcome party, but then he traced the path of her eyes and realized she wasn't looking at the man. She was looking at the boy curled up in the man's arms.

He was confused until the man reached the halfway point of the bridge. Then he felt it, the cold, tingling thrill of foreign magic against his skin, crackling against the base of his throat like thunder and waterfalls and fathomless heights. The sheer depth, the sheer power he could feel pulsing softly from the boy in the man's arms —even stronger and deeper than the impressions of old fire and towering stone the man gave off— really did Bast's breath away.

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_Magic was foreign to his body, just as he was foreign to it. He could accept it, and it came to his call more readily than even most natives, but he had always been able to _**_feel _**_it in a way no one else could. Except perhaps Luna. It was one of the many reasons they had bonded so strongly, her magic was the same as the magic of the Haven that had saved his life. She had been _**_safe_**_ in a way no one else had, and their identical ages made her far less intimidating to approach than either Queen Sylva or Ravus._

_He had grown used over those past two years to the steady, low-level thrum of the magic of the world against his senses, the tingle that came from absorbing it into his own body, the brushes of Luna's purifying power whenever she touched him. But that moment when he became able to sense King Regis, sense _**_Noctis_**_, was not one he would ever forget. Like looking at the ocean for the first time, like standing at the top of a high cliff and looking straight down. The sudden sensation of being so very, very _**_small_**_ was not one easily forgotten. If ever._

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Bast could never remember the rest of the greeting ceremony after that point. He was too wrapped up in the low, soul-deep thrum of power he could feel coming from the sleeping boy in the man's arms as well as the jumbled wash of _joy-sorrow-love_ that came from Luna's white-knuckled grip.

His daze continued for a week into their visit, receding enough for him to process words and commands —and Ravus's concern— once far enough away from their guest —who did turn out to be King Regis of Lucis as well as his son Noctis, brought to Tenebrae for recovery from a bad injury—, only to come back full force at the most unexpected of moments. For once, Luna's presence didn't help. Her magic was jumpy and her excitement palpable to everyone, not just Bast, for that first week while they waited for the royal doctors to finish last minute treatments and surgeries and allow the young prince visitors.

Thankfully, by the end of the week, Bast had become inoculated enough to the foreign magic of the Lucian royal line to once again be able to think straight. Just in time to be formally introduced to Noctis Lucis Caelum.

The meeting took place in an airy study, Noctis was in a wheelchair, and one of Bast's first thoughts upon seeing him was that he was awfully small for someone who gave off such waves of latent power. Wide blue eyes —_like a summer sky, or Luna's favorite flowers_— stared from Bast to Luna with fascination as they were introduced and the first words out of his mouth were an awed, "You're twins!"

Luna laughed softly and tugged Bast closer, "My apologies, Noctis-sama, but no. Bast is the ward-son of the Nox Fleuret family, our similar appearances are just a coincidence."

Noctis's face scrunched up in confusion, "Ward?"

King Regis, watching from just behind Noctis's wheelchair, murmured an explanation in his son's ear that had Noctis frowning and declaring stubbornly, "I say you're twins. Even if you have different parents."

Luna and Bast exchanged only the briefest of glances before Luna smiled, "If that is what you wish, Noctis-sama." Her gaze switched to King Regis, "With His Majesty's permission, can we take Noctis-sama out into the gardens for some fresh air?"

The permission that was granted them was the start of a trend and the moment his twosome with Luna became an unexpected threesome.

Noctis went everywhere with Luna. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that Luna followed Noctis everywhere with a dedication that baffled everyone but Bast. No one else could sense what he sensed. Feel the way Noctis's magic reached for Luna's and how Luna's reached back, intertwining like twin heartbeats, inseparable halves of a whole that spilled out into two bodies. They were meant for each other, literally meant for each other in a way that went soul deep, a way that no one else could ever hope to compete with.

Which was —_looking back on it_— the reason he had spent the next three weeks of Noctis's stay hating the prince's existence with every fiber of his being. Because Noctis had a deeper bond with Luna than Bast could ever hope to have even though they had known each other a few weeks compared to Bast's two years. He'd hidden it for Luna's sake —_no matter how much he seethed, he never would have done anything to make her cry_—, played nice with the prince during the day, smiled and laughed like nothing was wrong even when his heart felt like it was burning for reasons he couldn't fully understand —_not that understanding would have changed anything, Luna belonged to Noctis, heart and soul without reserve_—. Three weeks stretched to a month, then a month and a half in that manner, and Bast had to come up with excuses to not be in their company more and more often as his anger —_his jealousy_— grew and became harder to hide.

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_He was never sure, afterward, if what happened next was because he had played pretend too well, or if Luna had always known how Bast really felt and could not bear the thought of her best friend despising her prince so. If she had known how he felt at the time, then what she had done next was inarguably the cruelest deed she ever had or would perform in her life. Even if it had worked out in the end._

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A month and half after Noctis's arrival in Tenebrae, Luna had approached Bast in private, for once without Noctis trailing along on her heels, "Bast?"

Bast glanced up from the book he'd been half-heartedly thumbing through, trying not to let the hope that he'd finally get a day with Luna all to himself show on his face, "Yeah?"

Luna's white hands twisted together in a rare nervous gesture, "I have a request."

Bast put the book aside immediately, "Of course. What is it?"

Her next words plunged his heart into his shoes, "I have Oracle training with Mother that will take all day today. Possibly all of tomorrow as well. I know it might seem foolish to ask, but … could you stay with Noctis until I am done? Keep him company?"

He wanted to say no. He wanted so very badly and passionately to say no. But Luna's eyes were so sincerely worried, her magic fluttering like nervous butterfly wings against his senses as she explained that Noctis was shy around the servants and she didn't want him to be lonely. That of everyone in the castle, she **trusted** Bast to look after Noctis in her absence.

He had never been able to deny Luna anything, especially not when she looked at him like that. So he swallowed back his jealousy and agreed. Tried to take pleasure in her delighted smile before they had to part ways again, her to her training, Bast to his unwanted task.

Noctis was not a bad child. He was nice even. Friendly, if subdued from his injuries and chronic pain. He had recently relearned how to walk for short periods of time and was practicing when Bast came in. But Noctis's look of disappointment when Bast told him that Luna would not be able to see him for the day, and possibly the day after that, didn't help Bast's feelings for his task —_Noctis even commented once, years later, on how he'd picked up on Bast's bad temper that day—_. But Bast had a promise to keep, so he swallowed his pride and played with Noctis the entire day, taking him everywhere he wanted, doing the things Luna usually did with him —and had once done solely with Bast—.

Every second of it had hurt him in the heart. But he'd pressed on until, to his relief, Noctis dozed off beneath a shady tree in the gardens. Bast had made to leave, go find a servant to keep an eye on Noctis while he went and cooled his temper in the training room, but whirled back around in alarm when Noctis's magic twisted and flared like a silent cry of terror.

Bast crouched by the prince's side in an instant, frantic that he'd been hurt while in Bast's care —and what would Luna say if that happened?—. Noctis's magic flared again, followed by a muted cry from his lips, and Bast reached out to shake the prince's awake from what was clearly a nightmare. Bast's hand touched bare skin and the world briefly shattered into visceral flashes of _Darkness-surprise-fear-blood, so much blood. Agony all down his back and legs, a body heavy on his. Looming shadows ever closer in a blur of terror-anguish-save-me-someone-_**_anyone-save-me-PLEASE-_**_._ Noctis woke up with a gasp and Bast recoiled from both the prince and the tug of his magic trying to force the nightmare into Bast's head instead of the prince's.

Noctis looked around, wild eyed, magic swirling tight knots of panic-fear-nausea until he spotted Bast and his trembling frame relaxed. Bast watched in astounded fascination as Noctis's magic unwound, the panicked swirling changing to low eddies of relief that curled around Bast's skin like one of Ravus's pet cats seeking comfort. Words tumbled from Bast before he could stop them, "What was that? Your nightmare- that- that…"

Noctis curled in on himself, not questioning how Bast knew what he'd dreamed, "The daemon that hurt me. It … I still see it. When I sleep sometimes. Dad keeps telling me it's gone and can't hurt me anymore, but I still … I still see it. Feel it. I can't make it go away. Only Luna can." His breathing hitched, "I was so scared. When it came after me … Maura was dead. I was all alone…"

And with that, for just a few moments, Bast forgot all about how much he thought he hated Noctis. Because he could see his first few days in the jungle in his mind's eye when Noctis said those words. Feel the terror and helplessness that had only really started to go away when Luna came into his life and banished his nightmares with her golden magic.

Bast shuffled over to sit next to Noctis, not touching, but close enough to be felt. They sat in silence for several minutes until finally words pushed themselves out of Bast's lips, "Before Queen Sylva's foresters found me … I was all alone. There were … monsters out there. Everywhere I looked. I was afraid. That they would find me, that they would get me whenever I slept. After I got taken to the Manor … I kept dreaming the monsters had followed me there. That they were waiting, right at the end of my bed to snap me up. Luna … Luna made the nightmares stop. She used to stay with me every night, sometimes all night. Holding my hand so that I knew I wasn't alone."

Blue eyes watched him curiously, "Used to?"

He couldn't keep the traces of bitterness out of his voice, "She stays with you now. All the time."

A guilty flinch, "Oh." Bast shrugged and stared out over the garden. Silence hovered between them before Noctis added, "I'm sorry."

Surprised, Bast looked over at the prince, who worried his bottom lip for a second before he continued, "I hate it when Dad's too busy to spend time with me. I didn't mean to do that to you with Luna. I just…" _couldn't help it_ hovered unsaid in the air. Bast sighed and felt the growing pool of anger and jealousy drain out of the pit of his stomach. Because Noctis **couldn't** help it, Bast knew that. He could feel it in the way the prince's magic hummed and beat in time with Luna's. It was just … hard. To know that no matter what Bast did, Luna would always pick Noctis first. But … if Noctis and Luna were the same, then that meant Noctis would always pick Luna too. And if it made Luna happy, then maybe, just maybe, Bast could be happy with that? For Luna's sake.

He didn't think he could. But it was suddenly hard to hate the boy who was so alone and afraid that his magic would even show Bast his memories —_the boy who suddenly reminded Bast a lot of himself_—. Bast pursed his lips together, then sighed, "It's … okay. You can't help it. Besides, you make Luna happy."

"You make her happy too." Bast shifted to stare at Noctis questioningly. Noctis fiddled with his shirt, "She talks about you a lot. When you aren't around. About how brave you are, and how smart. She's says you're her best friend."

A thread of happiness, tentative and fragile but warm, wound around Bast's heart, "Oh." He blinked a few times, then felt a tiny but genuine smile tug at his lips, "Thanks." Noctis gave a tiny smile back and for the rest of the day, things weren't … perfect between them. But better. Even if it was just a little bit.

Luna was busy the next day too, and unexpectedly three days after that. Bast loyally went to keep Noctis company every time and during those times discovered that Noctis was actually a lot of fun to be around when Luna wasn't there to accidentally remind Bast about his jealousy. Noctis was eager to please and happy to learn just about anything. Bast had fun being the teacher for once, as he taught Noctis about plants in the garden, or how to walk so that he didn't make any noise across hard tiles or grassy ground.

When Luna came back, Bast still felt an intense twinge of unhappiness at the way her magic rushed to Noctis's in greeting. But then Noctis called to him to come play with them rather than letting Luna do all the coaxing and two wellsprings of magic swirled around his skin in welcome as he approached and the anger bled away again in favor of bragging to Luna about how Noctis was picking up his silent walking technique even faster than she had or getting her to laugh over something silly the prince had done.

A month later, the inseparable twosome had clicked into a threesome and Bast no longer had to fake enjoying time with Noctis as well as Luna. Ravus found the three of them endlessly amusing, and King Regis, for all his magic rumbled of mountains and deep forest secrets, had a nice laugh when Bast told him silly stories about his son.

"Bast?" Bast looked up from where he'd been watching Noctis's magic twitch and curl in the prince's sleep and gave Luna a questioning noise. She set aside the book she'd been reading aloud until Noctis had fallen asleep and stood up. She crossed the gap between them silently, and Bast felt concern zip through him as she took both her hands in his, letting him feel the way her magic fluttered uneasily, butterfly wings in a stormy breeze.

He twined his fingers around hers gently, trying to calm the flutter of magic, "What's wrong, Luna?"

Luna stared at their joined hands for a long time, forehead wrinkled, "I don't know. I've been having … bad dreams of late."

"Do you want me to stay with you tonight?" He didn't have Luna's nightmare-soothing magic, but if she thought his presence might help…

"Please."

So he did. Slipped out of his room and padded down to Noctis's after the servants had put everyone else to bed. The door was unlocked and Bast crawled onto the bed without hesitation. He could barely make out Luna's form on top of the covers in the dark, running a hand through Noctis's hair as the younger boy slept. Bast took her free hand and twined their fingers together as he settled on Noctis's other side. Luna squeezed his fingers in silent gratitude and at first Bast thought that would be that.

He had just started to doze off when Luna whispered, "Bast?"

"Hmmm?"

"Can I ask another favor?" Her magic hummed between them, low and serious, like the calm before a thunderstorm.

Bast blinked the sleep from his eyes and propped himself up on one elbow, "Of course."

"It is a very big favor."

"I know." He could feel it in her magic, more serious and subdued than he could ever remember it being, "Tell me."

"Can you … will you … look after Noctis for me?"

He frowned at Luna's silhouette in the dark, "Is this about your nightmares?"

Her magic stilled under his skin, like an animal, startled and frightened. Then it tightened around his hand in a silent plea, "Please, Bast. Promise me that you will protect him, no matter what."

"If that's what you want-."

"**Promise me**."

There was something in the air, weighty and watching. Like Gentiana-sama's magic when she came to deliver a message, like Queen Sylva when she promised King Regis that Noctis would have the best care and protection that Tenebrae had to offer. Bast knew then, that whatever he said next was going to be permanent. It was going to be something not just for the next day, or the week, or even the year. It would be always.

"I promise," he whispered and the air shivered around him like silent thunder, "I promise to protect Noctis, no matter what."

The air trembled again, rumbling with something impermeable and unshakable. Something that sounded like a voice in a tongue he could and couldn't understand murmuring, _So It Is Spoken, So It Will Be Done._ _Forever and Always._

**_Forever and Always._**

Bast heard Luna's shaky sigh of relief, sensed her smile in the dark, "Thank you, Bast."

He could not bring himself to smile back, "Goodnight, Luna."

"Goodnight."

The next day, flying ships of metal carrying soulless machines that walked like men fell from the sky and Tenebrae **burned**.

Bast did not speak to Luna again for twelve years.


End file.
